Central to Jerome Bruner’s theory, set out in his book Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, is the difference between two types of mental construction: argument and narrative. You can put forward a case, or you can tell a story. They are different in their methods, their inner logic and their aim. Argument appeals to verifiable truth, story appeals to verisimilitude, lifelikeness.
Argument is about the universals of logic and science. Narrative is about the particularities of human experience.
You can test an argument. You cannot test a story, but it can still convey powerful and revelatory truths.
Bruner’s point is that narrative is central to the construction of meaning, and meaning is what makes the human condition human.
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Ten years after Bruner published AM, PW, he published "The Culture of Education." In this book, he changes his mind about the dichotomy between the narrative and logico-scientific modes of thinking. "...grand theories in science are perhaps more story-like than we had expected." (p. 122) Hutto further proposes in his Narrative Practice Hypothesis that all cognition has its basis in narratives of a certain kind, those based on intentional acts.
Gmak
Level 7
May 25, 2019
1
Most people search for facts which substantiate their emotional conclusion which they've already come to.
narrative by its very nature engrosser's listener and stimulates The Listener emotionally.
argument also stimulates the listener emotionally, requires The Listener to concede or affirm the point both can be effective they must appeal to the emotions to be effective.
m16566
Level 7
May 25, 2019
4
Jerome Bruner was a cognitive psychologist, in the same camp as, but differing greatly from Jean Piaget. -- a camp I agree with greatly. What Bruner is talking about is the difference between science and mental construction and creation. Science can test ideas and give us partial answers, but it is the act of constructing and using cognitive structures and schema which gives us the ideas and innovations which can be put to the test. Piaget gave us much more that explains how the human mind functions.
wordywalt
Level 9
May 25, 2019
4
cava:
JP made a career chasing rug rats around.
cava:
@wordywalt No, from what I recall, Piaget thought infants are active players with thoughts, even very early on in life, not a behaviorist but very much an empiricist. Developmental psych is about how rug rats develop physically and mentally, in many ways all we have is their behavior and some very clever experiments to say what's going on in their minds.
@cava I believe that you are wrong. I studied Piaget in graduate level psychology courses. He was, first and foremost, a biologist. He transitioned into psychology and quickly saw how the biological nature of humans led them to construct cognitive structures and schema which forms most of what we call he mind. He was NEVER a behaviorist running rats through tasks and mazes.
cava:
@wordywalt Well, slowly we seem to be getting there. "Piaget thinking that children have great cognitive abilities, he came up with four different cognitive development stages, which he put out into testing. Within those four stages he managed to group them with different ages." He did this by crawling around chasing his kids and kids in his laboratories.
Narratives seem to present emotionally based arguments, of a kind not possible for a logistical argument, where the reader's imagination is compelled more by empathy with the story and its characters...than say by a nihilistic argument.
“We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn’t all totally pointless.”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
cava
Level 7
May 25, 2019
3
I take it you've read Nietzsche
I think I would like that book. Narrative was the way of myth for such a long time. I hope it won't die out completely. Argument is rationality based. Pirisg's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance did a fine job of trying to unite the two in his concept of quality. The divide is often expressed as Classical and Romantic. There is a sense out there, not entirely new, that the classical approach leaves out a lot of human experience, not being made for certain tasks, such as giving meaning to life.
brentan
Level 8
May 25, 2019
5
very well said, that's a great book
Narratives are much less likely to foster resistance.
Lorajay
Level 9
May 25, 2019
5
Agreed. An idea that is ‘based on...’ can use all manner of techniques and instruments to move a narrative along. An argument is always looking for a justification.
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